This week’s arctic outbreak will be impressive but one of the best tests will be how severe it gets and whether it’s as impressive as last January’s. This is actually the 2nd of 3, maybe 4 highs which drive cold into the Lower 48 through the first 2 to 3 weeks of 2015.

Last week’s high got to I believe 1059 while the GFS has this high reaching 1060mb within the next 3-5 days with thicknesses much lower than last week. As previously stated, a crucial factor in terms of how cold will be whether there’s snow on the ground.

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Admittedly this coming cold outbreak DOESN’T look at extreme as last January according to the charts, however, last January’s charts were more extreme with the cold than what actually happened. As bad as last January was, the charts overdid the level of cold for several places such as Minneapolis where it had -25 to -30 when it actually only hit -21. In Chicago it showed -20 when it was actually -16 and for New York where it showed -5 or colder, it was actually +4. IT WAS NO SUPER OUTBREAK!

The point is, this could will be as impressive as what the models are showing and fall short of last January’s intensity or it will be colder and equally as impressive. It will be interesting to see if the models are underdone, overdone or spot on.

This morning’s lows via weather.com

Thursday looks coldest of the upcoming outbreak.

Here’s what the model sees in terms of snow cover.

GFS 12z temps for Thu AM

ECMWF 12z temps

See video for discussion.

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